Category: Beavers and Frogs

Defending your Beavers

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? October 23, 2014

Beaver habitat topic of concern

Now after yesterday’s horrors, any sane person reading this headline from The Cabinet in Milford, New Hampshire, would obviously suspect that the concerns were mosquitoes, flooding or giardiasis. But any sane person would be WRONG because this is actually the exceedingly rare and absolutely best kind of concern.

MILFORD – Residents were back before selectmen last week to complain about the breaching of a beaver dam at Heron Pond. It was the second time since the Department of Public Works breached the dam in August that residents, lead by local environmental activist Suzanne Fournier, went to a selectmen’s meeting.

Fournier said removing part of the dam, which was done by hand, resulted in mud flats and harmed many kinds of wildlife.

Ahh Suzanne! We read about her almost exactly a month ago – the last time they did this. Apparently they haven’t learned much although Suzanne has been doing her homework. The good news is that this time school is back in session and she brought friends.

Several other residents went to the microphone at the Oct. 13 Board of Selectmen’s meeting to say they were unhappy with the dam breaching, including Suzanne Schedin, a teacher at Heron Pond School, who said the town should reconsider the decisions made 14 years ago when the 270-acre Brox property was purchased to see if development is a good idea.

Chairman Gary Daniels conceded that town officials should have involved the Conservation Commission in its decision about dam breaching, and Audrey Frazier, commission chairwoman asked the board if they could be informed the next time work is done to the pond.

Have you noticed how development is always lurking in the wings? The article describes how the selectman responded with the usual weaseling, saying the pond had just been altered, not drained and they shouldn’t worry so much and “Work together for the town.” Grr. But if I were one of these very select group of men I would pay attention to the fact the Blue Heron School is an elementary and if they’re not very, very careful they will wind up at the next meeting with a room full of these: (The original weasel deflectors).

(That reminds me, I have to send an email to some teachers.)

In the mean time, if you haven’t seen the scathing editorial from the Contra Costa times about one of our own ‘select men’ you really should read it. And I know this website isn’t supposed to be political but the endorsed candidate Mark Thompson is a friend of our beavers and came to the recent Beaver Safari. Incumbent Lara Delaney who is also endorsed, faught for a chance to be on the beaver sub-committee. And Gay Gerlack who is running for mayor spoke up for the beavers at the original meeting in November 2007.

Coincidence?

Beavers Far and Wee

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? October 14, 2014

Beaver fence aims to stop pathway flooding in Fish Creek

A beaver appears to be missing a paw from a trapping mishap in Fish Creek Provincial Park. (Ingham Nature Photography )

Calgary officials are trying out a new way to manage beavers that are causing problems in Fish Creek Provincial Park.

The rodents keep packing mud and logs against a culvert in a city-owned storm pond. If left, the dam would cause the pond to overflow and flood a popular pathway.

In the spring, the city’s water services department is going to install something called an exclusion fence — a trapezoid shaped fence made of wire that prevents the beavers from plugging the culvert.

The city used to deal with situations like this by trapping and killing the beavers, but it reviewed that policy after an incident in July. A beaver got caught in a trap, but didn’t die and was spotted struggling to free itself.

Fish Creek Park Beavers

The area in Fish Creek Provincial Park where city officials tried to trap and kill the beaver over concerns it would flood a bike path. (Carla Beynon/CBC)

Upset animal lovers launched a petition to stop trapping in the city. That prompted the review, which revealed that debris got caught in the trap, causing it to malfunction. Since then, the city has been working with the Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals to come up with non-lethal alternatives.

“We want to go a different route so we don’t actually have to kill beavers,” said water services spokesman Randy Girling. “We don’t want to be known as killers or anything like that. We want to do the best we can for the wildlife in our parks.”

Hurray for Adrien and Fur-Bearer Defenders! They managed to convince the good folk of FCPP that it was better to try something new than claw their way out of any more bad press and public wrath. Adrien says it was hard, hard work. Like pushing a grand piano through a transom. But they persevered and were granted permission to install a beaver deceiver now. Gosh, I’m so old I can remember when Adrien installed his first leveler!

Sniff, they grow up so fast.

Speaking of the long arm of beaver defenders, I got an invitation this morning to present at the San Pedro Valley Park in Pacifica on beavers. A month after I’ll be talking in Auburn. That’s 133 miles apart for beaver defense. 1670 if you count Utah and Oregon. And Cheryl just visited Big Break in Brentwood where she snapped these videos of our work at the visitors venter!

Pretty cool to be long-range beaver preachers!

Seeing is Believing

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, kits, Video, Who's saving beavers now? September 12, 2014

The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary lying inland from the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the largest such body in the US. And look who’s on the back cover of their newsletter? Thanks Malcolm Kenton for sending it our way!Sure there is nothing about beavers actually IN the newsletter, or partnering with beavers for restoration to repair damaged streams,and that neat tanbark sure looks like the home of a kit in captivity, but heck, it’s a start, maybe the beginning of one of those conversations that keep you up well into the night. There was a nice story from them on living with beaver last year when they noticed they’re population was going up.

Fortunately, there is an easy way to solve the conflicts without killing beavers, Griffin said. The answer is: beaver deceivers. These are cage-like devices that prevent the animals from blocking the stormwater pipes. The Humane Society has been meeting with state and local governments across the region to convince them to use this and similar technology – including underwater pipes – as affordable and non-lethal ways to foil beaver dams, Griffin said.

“A study we did showed that, over time, it is far more cost beneficial to install and maintain these devices than to kill beavers and then constantly go and clean out culverts over and over again,” said Griffin.

One of the governments the Humane Society helped to convince to use the devices is Rockville, Maryland, which is planning to install a beaver deceiver in a stormwater pond behind Richard Montgomery High School, according to Heather Gewandter, stormwater manager for Rockville. There, a family of beavers gnawed down several trees, and built a dam and a lodge in a roughly 100-foot-wide urban stormwater control pond behind the school’s bike paths and trash cans. The dam is blocking the pond’s stormwater drainage outflow, threatening an adjacent road with flooding when it rains, and reducing the effectiveness of the whole runoff pollution control system, Gewandter said.

“We’ve noticed a real increase in the beaver population in the recent past,” she said. “But we have a live and let live policy for all wildlife – and so that includes deer, coyotes, and beavers. So we want to do everything in our power to co-exist with the beaver. We also do want to honor our obligations, when it comes to water quality. So we are really hopeful that these beaver deceivers will work.”

The city is also wrapping the trunks of young trees in several parks with short bamboo curtains, to prevent the beavers from cutting them down. Trees, after all, are important not only for scenery and shade in the parks – but also to cool and filter streams.

No word in the article about how beavers are helping the streams you’re trying to save, and filtering the water you’re working to clean, but hey, I’m thrilled you’re using flow devices and wrapping trees. I’m sure you’ll catch on to the restoration story eventually.

On a lighter note Bobby posted this footage of a kit tailslap on the river Tay in Scotland and I had to share. Look at his muscles tense and twitch while he’s obviously gearing up for this heroic feat.

Much more talented than our kit, who wasn’t much younger. Not only does fail to get the required SMACK sound, he uses so much effort that he almost does a back flip in the water!

‘A’ for effort, though. That’s what I call enthusiasm.

Speaking of great effort, here’s a photo just sent from Rusty in Napa at the beaver pond he’s watching up there. This green heron got lucky, and probably will again soon. I think he’s enjoying a bullfrog tadpole, which means there are more where this came from. If he waits a while he can get some with feet!

green heron catch — Green Heron Catch: Rusty Cohn

Beavers at Sulpher Creek Nature Center

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? September 10, 2014

From the SF Gate, May 4 2011

Tucked in a woodsy canyon in the Hayward hills, the Sulphur Creek Nature Center treats as many as 900 injured and orphaned wild animals every year. A wildlife education and resource center, it also serves as a permanent refuge for several nonreleasable birds and mammals.

1. Sulphur Creek Nature Center

Operated by the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District, this center offers classes, a year-round school science program for teachers and their students (preschool through sixth grade), an Animal Lending Library teaching the responsibilities of caring for a pet, and more. (510) 881-6747. www.haywardrec.org/sulphurcreek.html.

Think Lindsay Museum in Hayward and you’re close. And come this saturday think this:

Beavers are “nature’s engineers” in providing habitat for a diverse eco-system. Learn about this “Keystone Species” from Heidi Perryman, founder of “Worth a Dam” and discover how beavers are “key” to a rich environment.

28273 18yr+ $18

This all came about because one of the folks who used to regularly watch beavers with us is a volunteer there and after years of persuasion they agreed to finally host a program on beavers. I’m kinda surprised it’s so pricey and ADULT ONLY but I’ll try to be worth it, with lots of after hours adult only information!

(I only have on explicit beaver picture, but I’ll eek it out.)

Figure 27. Copulation in water, replicated from Ruth Pollitts’ illustration (in Kitchener 2001).

Ooh there’s a new video from the wild beaver folks on the Tay, although I hope the date is wrong. Beavers mating in September means babies in late December? Ohhh just got an email clarifying that the date this was taken was Feb 2. Much better!

Plot Thickener

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 9, 2014

We haven’t heard much from Devon lately on the great beaver trapping from DEFRA. If you’ll remember, a slew of citizens and farmers came to the meeting asking that they be allowed to remain.

DEFRA took this opportunity to blow off the meeting and pick up the traps instead. We heard they haven’t been too successful at catching any quarry, and it is looking like the good guys were winning this round. At least by default.

I guess DEFRA thought it was time for this.

Don’t allow beavers to upset our freshwater ecosystem

There seems to be a movement in this country to re-introduce species that have long been extinct, of which the beaver is one of many. These people will support their argument by declaring the beaver has only been extinct for 200-300 years. Not so. It became extinct in this country in the 12th century. As Derek Gow says they are great engineers building dams and constructing homes in rivers and streams from trees they have felled. Derek says they create wetlands. I do not think so. The likely outcome is more floods. Surely we have had enough floods in the last two years without additional problems caused by beavers.

Do not upset the status quo – the freshwater habitat in this country is a fragile ecosystem. Much damage can be done by reintroducing an alien species which the beaver is. We as humans do not have to feel guilty just because we were instrumental in the destruction of the beaver all those years ago. The world has moved on, so has our country and our rivers.

The beaver should be considered an alien in this country just like the grey squirrel, coypus, mink and Japanese knotweed. The damage they can do is too great to take the chance.

Those who put these animals in the River Otter should help the Environment Agency trap them – act now before it is too late.

Alien beavers! Thank goodness the West Morning news printed this ANONYMOUS letter before it was too late! I wonder who penned this thoughtful treatise? (Mr. George Eustice, don’t be so modest!) You should go read the whole thing because it contains a lovely passage from HBN Hynes which makes beaver restoration sound very heroic – and then argues ‘we can’t STAND this much repair in our rivers’! I especially like how it warns us of what’s to come and ends with the recognition that the government trappers have absolutely no idea what they’re doing and need assistance.

(The good news is that I see this morning another very popular badger cull is coming so they’ll have something else to keep them busy for a while.)

Your pro-beaver comment is needed now. I’m particularly of mine.

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And just so you know not all of Europe is ignorant of beavers, I got this from Duncan Haley this morning.

The Voronezhsky Biosphere Reserve is pleased to invite you to take part in 7-th International Beaver Symposium! The symposium will take place in Russia, Voronezh, September 14-17, 2015

Organizers of symposium:

MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Department of State Policy on Environmental Protection

Voronezh Region Government

Russian Research Institute of Game Management and Fur Farming

Voronezhsky Biosphere Reserve

The seventh symposium! And before you start thinking this event is exactly as old as our beaver festival, it’s actually much older, since it’s held every two years. You might remember back when Skip Lisle was invited to the one in Lithuania and our beaver friend Alex Hiller met him there.